NEW YORK (AP) -- A reporter and two pilots aboard a news helicopter that spun out of control and crashed on a Brooklyn rooftop escaped without serious injuries.

The chopper had been covering a shooting in Brooklyn for WNBC-TV on Tuesday when it clipped a four-story building, broke apart and crash landed on the roof of a two-story dwelling.

Reporter Andrew Torres and the two pilots were hospitalized in stable condition Tuesday night, WNBC spokeswoman Liz Fischer said. "We have spoken to them, and they seem to be OK," she said. No one on the ground was harmed.

Witnesses said the chopper sounded like a stuttering motorcycle before it went down.

"I could hear boop, boop, boop, like the sound of a motorcycle, but real loud," said Roger Green, who lives about a block from the crash site. "So I looked out the window, and it was spinning around out of control. And then it dropped down behind some trees."

The crash occurred at about 6:20 p.m. Callers to 911 reported seeing the helicopter "fall from the sky" and onto the rooftop in a residential neighborhood of tree-lined streets and houses with yards. The tail of the helicopter hung over the side of the building.

Just a few minutes before the crash, Torres gave a live report on the shooting below. WNBC lost communication with the chopper shortly before the crash, station spokeswoman Anna Carbonell said. The cause of the crash wasn't known.

The shooting the reporters were covering, which involved civilians and police officers, had been reported in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn. Three civilians were shot but were not gravely injured, and three officers fired six shots, police said. The shooting was under investigation.

In 1986, a traffic reporter for WNBC radio in New York, Jane Dornacker, was killed when her helicopter crashed into the Hudson River. The pilot was critically injured.

Earlier that year, Dornacker and another pilot escaped unharmed when a WNBC traffic helicopter crashed into the Hackensack River in New Jersey.

^ sad..